


suffer what we must

by the eternal feminine (redpenninja)



Category: Agent Carter (TV)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, F/F, Jack ships Cartinelli, Pre-Relationship, everyone is sort of a bad person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-27
Updated: 2016-02-27
Packaged: 2018-05-23 15:06:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,052
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6120358
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/redpenninja/pseuds/the%20eternal%20feminine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"They don’t really know how to talk to each other, he decides, but this is enough. She gives him a little glimpse at her real smile, a small ray of sunlight bursting through dark skies. He wonders how she looks when she smiles at Carter, wonders what she thinks about when she goes home to a large, empty house, wonders how Carter reacts to such a blinding, ethereal light."<br/>//<br/>In which Jack meets Angie, Angie gets desperate, and Jack has an ulterior motive for getting Peggy home from Los Angeles.</p>
            </blockquote>





	suffer what we must

**Author's Note:**

> I originally intended this to be funnier, but as always, it took a turn for the angsty. Rest assured, it has a happy ending. Enjoy.

The waitress with the short curls and noisy heels sets down a mug and pours Jack a cup of coffee before he even orders anything. He flicks his gaze up to her, startled for a moment by the tired, dark rims around her eyes. She looks young and vibrant otherwise, but the black circles under her eyes add a sense of hollowness to her features.

Jack clears his throat and folds his paper, pointing down at the cup of black coffee, “Didn’t order this.”

The waitress sets the pot on the hot plate behind her before turning back to him and fixing her eyes, cold and unimpressed, back onto him. He smooths over his tie with one hand and shifts in his seat just to remind himself that he can. Her eyes have pinned him down, and he’s never had a woman look at him like that before.

“Yeah, well, I figured you’d need it,” the waitress says. She comes to stand against the counter, but doesn’t slouch her stiffened shoulders when she leans against it. “You’re not the first agent to sit at my counter.”

Jack leans back, squaring his jaw, “ _What_?”

But the waitress disappears, her face bland and unassuming while she hurries to refill one of the other patron’s coffee cups. He watches her, trying to think of where he knows her from, or where she would know him. The smile she offers the man at the booth is stretched thin and wavers, disappearing altogether when he reaches around and cups her ass. Jack huffs to himself, uncomfortable, and tries again to place the waitress’s light blue eyes or soft, curved lips. She’s a looker, for sure, and Jack feels as though he’d remember her if they’d gone out, or if she’d been someone’s date at the office’s Christmas party.

It isn’t until she arrives back at the counter and turns back to Jack, unsmiling and not bothering to at least try to appear put together and polite, that Jack recognizes the brokenness in her eyes.

“You’re the girl from the Griffith Hotel, right?”

The waitress cracks a false, simpering smile, “Not anymore. You and your _friends_ got us kicked out.”

The “us” catches him off guard for a moment and he takes a sip of his coffee to buy him some time. The waitress watches him, the same cold anger glazing over her eyes and tightening the muscles in her pretty jawline. He tries to remember that day, which is still a little fuzzy from the blow to his head Carter had dealt him. The landlady had taken him and Sousa straight to the waitress’s room, claiming that they were best friends and always together, that she’d be able to help them out the most. If she’d gotten kicked out, she had to go somewhere, and since Carter had new digs too…

“Wait, aren’t you Marge’s roommate now? Andrea or something?”

“I’m wearing a nametag,” she retorts, blue eyes blazing.

His eyes dart down to where it rests just above the curve of her breasts: _Angie_. Right. Carter talks about her sometimes, asks one of them to call her if she has to run off somewhere late, told the girls at the front desk to wave Angela Martinelli through if she ever came by. He wonders how much Angie knows about the SSR, about him and the others.

“So, you’re the infamous Angie,” he begins in his most illustrious, booming voice. “Marge talks about you a lot.”

Angie’s tired eyes seem to brighten for a moment at that, and Jack finds himself wondering how long they’ve been living together, if Carter had noticed that lightening yet. But then it fades away, back into the iciness that seems to be all because of him.

“Yeah? She never mentions you.” She barks out a tired laugh. “At least, not until last week. Said you were shipping her off to California.”

Oh. That. Angie seems a bit withered just from talking about it and he raises one hand in protest, the other still holding his mug.

“Hey, my hands were tied, princess,” Jack ignores the noise of protest at the nickname. “They asked for her by name, nothing I could do.”

He’s told that lie enough times by now that it almost feels true. Briefly, his mind wanders to Sousa, wonders how he’s holding up under English, red-lipped fire. He glances back at Angie, who apparently isn’t doing so hot without said fire.

“That’s what she told me,” Angie sighs, resting her chin in her hand. She looks defeated, lonely. “Couldn’t tell me when she’d be back though.”

She hesitates, and then the coldness in her eyes thaws away. She looks him in the eyes with complete vulnerability, and Jack wishes for the iciness back. “She doesn’t call, neither.”

“She’s probably busy,” he offers, bored and disliking the fact that the pinned-down feeling has returned. He wonders if Carter ever feels this way, at home in their penthouse together. The thought almost makes him smirk. “The more work she does, the faster it’ll be over, right? And then she’ll come home.”

“I guess.” Angie doesn’t seem convinced, but it doesn’t matter if he’s persuaded her or not.

She disappears when a new group of customers walks in the door, and Jack downs the rest of his coffee, not caring that it burns on the way down. He smooths out a five and lays it on the countertop. He’s over-tipping, but he doesn’t bother to correct his mistake. She needs it, and he somehow feels responsible for the exhaustion that reddens her eyes and dims the brightness that Carter’s always talking about.

On his way out he catches her eye again and she nods to him as if they have some sort of understanding. Jack rolls his eyes once he turns away and finds himself hoping that Carter comes back soon, for Angie’s sake more than his own.

/////

“Miss Martinelli here for you, sir,” the secretary’s voice comes crackling through the phone line.

“Who?” Jack rubs the bridge of his nose, his head throbbing from his last meeting with Masters.

“Martinelli, sir. She’s on Agent Carter’s admittance list.”

The waitress? Jack swears under his breath and runs a hand through his hair, loosening it from the constraints of his gel.

“Send her in, I suppose.” He clears his desk of Dottie Underwood’s files, and finds that Carter’s is buried underneath his stack. He doesn’t remember asking for it, but finds himself staring down at her stern, militaristic picture.

“Is that her?” Angie’s at the end of his desk, her eyes glued to Carter’s file. She’s clearly never seen that particular photo before, and her eyebrows are furrowed, creating small creases across her forehead. “She looks different.”

“The military will do that to you,” Jack sighs, settling back down in his chair again. “Take a seat.”

An indignant look flickers over her features, but she complies with him all the same. She sheds her long coat and hangs it over the back of the chair. She isn’t in that stupid uniform this time, and it seems she’s dressed for the occasion, as if coming down to the SSR required her Sunday best. Jack isn’t complaining, however; light blue is a nice color for her and now he can see the dip of her collarbone that was hidden under her uniform.

“What do I owe the pleasure?” He asks when she doesn’t speak. He isn’t sure if he’s teasing her or trying to flatter her, but she doesn’t react anyway.

“Have you heard from Peggy?” She pauses, fiddling with the strap of her pocketbook. “Agent Carter, I mean.”

Jack rolls his eyes and ignores the way hers narrow at him when he does so. “I talked to her. The case is closed, apparently.”

“Really?” Angie sits up a little straighter, the tiredness seeming to wash away from her features. “I wonder why she didn’t call to tell me she’s done.”

Jack rubs the back of his neck, that pinned-down feeling returning to the pit of his stomach. “See, that’s the thing, kid.”

“Don’t call me that.”

Now Jack narrows his eyes, “Do you want to know what she said or not?”

That seems to tame her a bit, and she sits back in the hard wooden chair, seemingly subdued. Only last year Jack had occupied the same spot, taking orders instead of giving them and going out of his way to step on Carter and Sousa’s backs. Now they’re both out of his way, and the SSR could go belly-up any day. The thought makes his stomach twist, and he has to remind himself that he has Masters. He has a plan, and he’ll have somewhere to go.

Feeling powerful, he continues. “Case is closed, but Carter told me she’s staying in California. Why, I don’t know.”

“How? I mean, if you ordered her back here…” Angie doesn’t seem like she loves the idea of Carter being ordered around by him, yet here she is, asking for it like it’s a necessary evil.

“She’s using her vacation days,” he tells her. Then he smirks a bit. “My hands are tied, _kid_.”

Angie rolls her eyes, slouching in defeat against the chair. Her eyes are extinguished again, replaced with the cold, steely anger from their first meeting at the L&L. “God, only she would use her vacation to work. How many does she have?”

“Thirty-something, I don’t know,” he waves a hand to dismiss the question. “I’ve never seen her go on vacation. She might use them all.”

Angie huffs and folds her arms. Jack thinks he hears her mutter, “so much for Atlantic City” but he doesn’t quite catch it.

“You wanna know what I’d do, Miss Martinelli?” The professional use of her name catches her off guard and she looks up at him, surprised and expectant. His tone turns final, “Wait it out. She won’t come home until she’s certain her work is done, and there’s nothing we can do if she decides to use her vacation time.”

He curses himself for using “we”, for implying that they’re waiting together like old women waiting for their husbands’ return from the war. It doesn’t seem to faze her, however, and he continues once he feels he’s made his point, “Now, if there’s nothing else…”

Jack rises to his feet and extends his hand for her to shake. She looks down at it cryptically and then shakes it with loose fingers as if she’s worried he’d reach out and hit her. He tries to soften his eyes, willing her not to pin him down again. There’s something about her, something pure and golden that he hasn’t seen since before the war, that puts a weird feeling in the pit of his stomach. It feels familiar yet he can’t pinpoint it, so he moves to squash it instead. He releases her hand and steps from behind the desk to hold the door open for her.

“Thanks, Chief,” she mumbles, clearly unhappy with the outcome of their meeting.

Carter’s voice drifts through his mind, recalling a snippet of a phone conversation he’d overheard once. She’d been reclining at her desk, picking at a sandwich and looking over a file. When the phone had rang, both the food and the file were put to the side, and she talked for nearly an hour. She’d kept saying _you deserve better_ and now Jack has an inkling of who she’d been talking to.

He hears his voice reaching out to Angie again before his mind processes what he’s saying, “If you need anything, let us know.”

It’s what he would’ve said to the family of a lost agent, the words he’d told Chief Dooley’s wife, the promise he’d given countless wives and mothers and daughters. He doesn’t know why he said it. She nods to him at that and then weaves her way through the bullpen to the elevator, her shoulders hunched and her head tilted downwards, not at all the radiant actress that Carter described.

She does deserve better, he decides while he watches her go. Better than being left behind.

/////

He flies out there because of Masters, but he returns thinking about the waitress. He doesn’t tell Carter that Angie had approached him about her. Jack figures he can save that for a little while longer, use it as ammunition if things really start to go south. At this rate, they might. She’s as stubborn as ever and refuses to come back. What it is she’s doing out there, he doesn’t know. Hell, Sousa probably isn’t thoroughly sure either, but something tells Jack he’d probably turn a blind, lovesick eye anyway.

Then there’s the matter of Wilkes, or whatever his name is. The explosion at Isodyne alone should’ve been enough to tie up all the loose ends. At the very least, it was enough to call it a day. But she’s never satisfied, not with an easy ending. So she stays, and he can’t do anything but grant her the days off. He should be happy; Carter’s out of his hair and Sousa is tied up in knots again. All the drama is out of his office and on the sunny West coast.

When Jack finds himself sitting back at the counter of the L&L, he remembers that maybe not _all_ of the drama is out of his hands.

“Where have _you_ been?” Angie pours him a cup of coffee and sets down a slice of pie without hesitation. “Or is it Federal Scientific Something policy to just jet off without a trace?”

She’s angry again, so he bides his time by stirring his coffee, adding cream and sugar with meticulous caution though he usually drinks it black. When he’s dragged it out for as long as he can, he meets her eyes again over the rim of the mug. They’re blazing like stars, but the edge is lost when he sees that her red rims have grown more prominent, the rings under her eyes darker and heavier. He tries to recall the last time he saw her; a week ago? Almost two, maybe.

“California on business,” he tells her evenly.

She straightens and her tone turns sweet, “Really? For Peggy?”

“No.” Her face crumbles. He thinks she’s being a bit dramatic. “I did see her, though. She’s still not finished.”

“What? Why?” She sounds so petulant he could laugh, but he schools himself not to.

“She thinks there’s more to what’s going on.” He raises a hand to stop her questioning. “It’s classified, gorgeous.”

She rolls her eyes and snatches the pie back from him. If he were anyone else, she probably wouldn’t have the audacity to be so rude at the risk of losing her job, but he won’t complain to her boss. She must know it, too, because she holds the pie hostage until he continues.

“If you ask me,” he lowers his voice and she leans in close enough that he can smell her perfume. “I think she’s too invested. There was a man…” He chooses his words carefully. “Who was involved and he was killed. She thinks there’s more to it than what the rest of the team working it agreed on.”

“Of course she does,” Angie buries her head in her hands and rubs down from the bridge of her nose. She looks far too young to be so exhausted, so worried, yet here she is. Her eyes harden. “A man, huh?”

He quirks an eyebrow and decides to allow her this, “Yeah, a scientist or something. She seemed very impressed by him.”

“Why wouldn’t she be?” She mutters, her voice too dark for her light demeanor. She slides the plate of pie back across to him, a peace offering. “Did she say anything?”

Jack picks at his pie and smirks up at her, “About you? No.”

Angie flushes and tries to pin him down with that look again, but her anger comes off sad and false this time around. When she speaks, her voice is gravelly and rimmed with faint Brooklyn toughness. “Come all this way just to tease me, huh? Real nice, real class act, Chief.”

“Maybe I came for New York’s best cup of coffee served by New York’s most beautiful waitress,” he smiles at her, the disarming one he uses at bars and on Senators’ wives.

She doesn’t even bat an eyelash and he finds himself disarmed instead. “Save it for your secretary, hotshot.”

Angie collects the coffee pot and starts to move towards one of her other tables. The man sitting there is watching her with wolfish, thirsty eyes. When she stands in front of him, he mutters something in a low, sultry voice to her and slaps her ass. Jack’s veins turn to ice and he almost stands to say something, almost storms over to threaten him with the knife strapped to his side, but he doesn’t. It isn’t his place, and Angie would probably give him an earful anyway. She doesn’t seem like the type that would need rescuing.

When she returns to the counter, the anger is gone, replaced with a wistful, otherworldly kind of loss.

“Did you know Peggy used to scare off assholes like him?” Angie starts, then purses her lips like she’s revealed too much. When Jack doesn’t say anything, she continues, focusing her gaze wiping up the already pristine countertop instead of looking at him. “She thought she was bein’ real slick once and threatened some man with a fork. He never came back here. I was watchin’ from the kitchen, but I never told her. Never thanked her, neither.”

She laughs a little bit, sounding faraway. “She thought she was such a good liar. I always knew she didn’t work for the phone company.”

“You miss her.” It comes out sounding more like a question than a statement and she rolls her eyes again.

“Gee, what gave it away? You’re real good at your job, Chief.” She sighs and looks toward the door, as if she’s waiting for Carter to walk in any minute.

“She’ll be back soon,” he takes on his commanding-officer voice. “They’ve got a great team out there.”

“I don’t doubt it,” she mutters. She cuts him another slice of pie and slides it over, dolloping it with a bit of whipped cream. “That’s on the house.”

“Thanks, Angie.”

They don’t really know how to talk to each other, he decides, but this is enough. She gives him a little glimpse at her real smile, a small ray of sunlight bursting through dark skies. He wonders how she looks when she smiles at Carter, wonders what she thinks about when she goes home to a large, empty house, wonders how Carter reacts to such a blinding, ethereal light. He finds himself making her another promise, one that drags all that sunlight out from behind the clouds and bursting into the dim automat.

“I’ll keep you updated.”

Her smile is grateful, and when she turns to face the other customer again, her voice is strong and her smile is brave.

/////

Jack goes looking for her before he goes to California again, the Carter file tucked neatly away in his suitcase, ready to wreak havoc and send Carter packing at long last. He’s doing it for Masters, for himself, but there’s a small part of him that knows it isn’t just about him anymore. It’s somehow turned into something bigger than politics and his job and Carter’s reputation. Now it’s secrets and feelings and lonely blue eyes that could’ve pinned down Stalin himself.

She isn’t at the automat when he arrives there, so he returns to the office to dig up Carter’s new address. She had been in good spirits that day, taking extra care on her information revision form though she hated the trivial task of doing paperwork. He calls the number listed in her illustrious script, but no Angie. He leaves a quick message requesting her presence at his office before the end of the day.

But still no Angie. Finally, when he shuts off the last light in the office and heads out, he makes his way to the Stark penthouse. The lights on the front steps are off and the paper is still sitting folded on the doormat, curling from the damp evening air. He tucks it under his arm and rings the bell, shifting his weight from side to side will he waits for her. The foyer light flicks on and he realizes that the house had been dark until then. He feels as though he’s intruding and almost turns to leave with the paper still under his arm before the door opens and she’s there, wrapped up in a robe and devoid of her soft makeup and curled hair.

“What do I owe the pleasure?” She opens the door a little wider when she sees it’s him and allows him to step into the foyer.

He drinks in the rich decoration and wide, grand hall while he shrugs out of his trench coat and hangs it on the hook. Next to it is Carter’s old red hat and when he turns back to Angie, he catches her looking at it as well. The door to the library is open across the hall and a sad, crooning melody is drifting from the record player.

“I’m keeping you updated,” he says. “Are you going to let me sit down or are we just going to stand in Stark’s hallway?”

She wraps the robe tighter around herself and beckons him to follow her into the library. Her steps are slow and calculating. He watches her carefully as she moves to turn off the record player and gesture to the couch. Piled up on the coffee table are half-open scripts and a mostly empty bottle of schnapps. A single glass sits next to it, waiting to be refilled.

“If you see English, do me a favor and don’t tell her I’m drinkin’ on a Tuesday,” Angie says when she follows his line of sight to her drink.

“English?”

“Agent Carter,” she amends, her already flushed cheeks turning redder. “Wouldn’t be drinking if it weren’t for the ennui.”

“The what?”

“Ennui,” she waves her hand, the nail polish on her fingernails chipping and broken. “Hits me real hard sometimes when I think too much.”

He arches an eyebrow, taking in how open her features are when she’s drunk. “Hard enough to skip work?”

She narrows her eyes at him, “Hey I get vacation days, too. And now that I’m not going to Atlantic City, I can plead ennui whenever I want.”

She pours herself another glass of schnapps and settles herself primly on the couch next to him, sure to keep an appropriate gap between them. He glances down at the table to give her time to settle comfortably, his eyes grazing through armies of words and prose. One quote from a script at the top of the pile is highlighted: _Even before I met you I was far from indifferent toward you._ He feels out-of-place suddenly, as if he’s intruded on something very private and very intimate just by being here.

“So,” Angie begins, her voice loud and slow. “Lay it on me, Chief.”

He clears his throat and straightens his back, hoping to appear like the title she’s used on him. “I think I’ve found a way to make sure Carter comes back.”

She eyes him warily over the rim of her glass, “Yeah?”

“Most of it is classified,” he warns. “But my superior has found something from her past that may…convince her to listen to us.”

“You’re blackmailing her,” Angie says simply, chewing on her bottom lip in thought.

“Well, when you put it that way,” he tries to look at her as inconspicuously as he can, taking in her poised profile and the slight dip of her unpainted lips into a worried frown.

“Do it,” she blurts, then turns to look at him head-on.

“You’d ‘ve done it anyway, though, huh?” “She’s overstepped too many boundaries and broken too many rules. I can’t overlook that,” he says, though he hears Masters’ voice come out of his mouth instead of his own.

Angie shrugs, swirling the drink around in her glass. “Gotta do whatcha gotta do. Like my ma used to say, all’s fair in love and war.”

“You love her?” This time it’s a question, one that hangs in the air for an unsteady beat before Angie sighs and runs a hand through her loose, fraying hair.

“I ain’t sayin’ I do, but I ain’t sayin’ I don’t. It’s something, though.” Her voice is low and ashamed and Jack shifts uncomfortably. When she looks up at him, her eyes are pinning again. “You won’t tell her.”

That’s _not_ a question and he shakes his head. “Not any of my business. I don’t care what you do.”

Angie laughs, but it’s dry and dark. “Whatever you say, Chief.”

Later, after he’s left and taken the long way back to his place, he thinks about the desperation in her eyes, the willingness for chaos in her voice. She’s long past desperation at this point, moving toward the edge of something more dangerous and haunting. Carter’s been gone nearly a month but Angie hasn’t learned to live without her. He thinks about the Wilde quote that was highlighted on the table and wonders how Carter can be so oblivious.

He looks up “ennui” in his old grade-school dictionary and feels a sharp pang of empathy, something he hadn’t felt since long before the war. He books his flight to California and prays for a quick return, if only to untangle himself from whatever Angie’s gotten herself into.

/////

He finds a spare moment between making plans and avoiding Carter and Sousa’s drama to call the automat. They’re due to head out into the desert any minute to put their damn fool plan into action, no one knowing what’s going to happen or if they’re going to come back at all. Jack half-expects Carter to disappear and phone Angie herself, but she’s too busy arguing with Sousa and looking like she’s being torn apart to think of anything back home.

In her place, Jack calls himself and hopes that that will be enough. The phone line rings longer than he’d expected it to. He leans against the wall, keeping his eyes on the hall to make sure no one from the bullpen would come and disturb him.

“L&L Automat, this is Marlene speaking.” A cheery voice chirps into his ear and he rolls his eyes.

“Is Angie there?”

“Just a moment!” The phone rustles as it’s exchanged and then comes a new voice, bored and irate. “Angela Martinelli.”

“Don’t sound too excited,” Jack says, knowing how slimy his voice sounds. “What if I’d been a casting director?”

He hears her huff on the other end, “Haven’t had an audition in a while. Is there a reason you called me at work?”

“The file was fake,” he informs her in a low voice, cupping his hand around the receiver. “It didn’t work. She’s still on the case and now I’m working on it too.”

“What?” She hisses, sounding somewhere between peeved and heartbroken. “What are you doing now?”

“We’re headed out to finish this,” he says. “I can’t say much else because it—“

“It’s classified, I _know_ ,” her voice sounds like she’s rolling her eyes. “If I had a dollar for every time I heard that, I’d never have to work again. Is there anything you _can_ tell me?”

“There’s two men, apparently.” He feels a bit like a gossiping matron, but can’t fight the instinct that he still owes her somehow. “The doctor, Wilkes, who’s apparently alive, and Sousa. You met him.”

“Right, be sure to thank him for getting me kicked out.”

He doesn’t bother to dignify that with a response, “She seems pretty conflicted about it all. Heard Wilkes tried to shoot her earlier, though.”

Her sharp intake of breath crackles through the line, but her words are steady and mean. “Nice to know romance isn’t dead. If it were up to _me_ , she wouldn’t be out there in the first place.”

“Too bad it’s not up to you,” Jack grumbles. He hears her breath hitch wetly and he tries to sound reassuring. “We’ll be fast. We’ll be safe. She’s coming home; she doesn’t have much a choice now.”

“You sure know how to make a girl feel secure,” she mutters. Muffled shouting filters through the line. “I gotta get back to work. Have her call me, all right? I haven’t heard her voice in a month.”

The line goes dead and Jack feels the dead, heavy dial tone in the pit of his stomach. He returns to the bullpen and doesn’t look Carter in the eye.

/////

Carter returns from the desert with a nasty bump on the back of her head. She also isn’t speaking to Jarvis, keeps humming some show-tune under her breath, and seems more determined than ever to see this through. Wherever it’s going, that is. Jack corners her after giving that irritating SSR scientist new instructions and figures he has nothing better to do than stir the pot while he waits. He’s feeling antsy and ready for the end of this hellish mission; blaming Carter for all of this is too easy. That pinned-down feeling has returned, even though Angie’s on the other side of the continent.

“Carter,” he crows as he approaches her. She’s sitting stiffly at one of the desks and keeps running her hands through her windblown hair. “Have a nice trip?”

“I’d prefer if we saved this rousing conversation for a time when my head isn’t pounding, thank you.” She turns away from him, but he slides between her chair and the desk and settles himself to lean against the desktop.

“You’ve done some hard work out here, Carter,” he says, his voice slow. “You must be proud. No ennui here.”

Her face, a bit sunburnt from trekking through the desert, drains of all color and her eyes take on the same hardened, faraway quality he’d heard in Angie’s voice. “What are you talking about? Where did you hear that word?”

“You were right about the L&L, you know,” he nods his approval. “Good stuff. Nice waitresses, too. Or have you forgotten?”

She leaps to her feet, eyes blazing and not at all faraway. The sudden action seems to make her head throb and she reaches up to touch her temple tenderly. When she speaks, her voice is laced with pain and threat. “What did you say to her?”

“She did most of the talking, actually.” He feels clever and in control. “She’s worried about you.”

“I know, I know that,” Carter squeezes her eyes tight, the muscles in her jaw tightening. Her head must be worse than he’d thought. “I was just thinking about her…”

“Call her,” Jack orders. “You at least owe her that.”

“Don’t tell me about Angie,” she spits. Everything about her is pure venom. “You have no business meddling in my personal life while I’m working. On a case _you_ ordered me on, no less.”

He folds his arms over his chest, “She came looking for _me_ , Marge. For answers that you haven’t given her.”

She turns to walk away, still holding her head with one hand. “I don’t need this. I don’t need you of all people telling me about my friends, telling me how to care about the people that I…”

She trails off, her eyebrows furrowing. Then she takes a deep breath and her level, authoritative Agent-Carter voice returns, “In the future, you would do well to remember your place, which is far away from me. And if I ever catch you so much as passing by that automat again, I won’t hesitate to call your ‘powerful’ friends and tell them just how brave and noble Jack Thompson truly is.”

Then she storms away, but it’s in the direction of the phones in the hall. He moves silently after her, standing at the corner of the hall and listening with baited breath as she dials the phone. She’s still breathing heavily from their fight and her heels click as she paces back and forth in the empty hall. Finally the call connects, presumably to the automat, and she asks for Angie.

He hears her draw in a sharp breath and then slump against the wall, “ _Angie_ …darling. It’s so good to hear your voice.”

That intrusive feeling from when he’d visited Angie at home returns and latches its iron grip onto his stomach. He slinks back toward the bullpen to finalize their plans. When Carter returns from the phone, her eyes are rimmed red and her voice is hoarse, but she announces she’ll be flying back to New York as soon as they’ve finished with Whitney Frost. The familiar feeling of victory coats his insides golden, but it has a sour aftertaste that he can’t wash away.

/////

Once they’re back at the office, Jack doesn’t see Carter for another three days. He doesn’t call, doesn’t write her up for going off the grid without notifying anyone, just waits. He doesn’t go by the automat either, but he gets the feeling that Angie probably isn’t there. Whatever they’d talked about on the phone had changed something, shifted the dynamic in their relationship, though whether it was for better or for worse, he couldn’t be sure.

He gets a few calls from Sousa, but when they’re mostly angry and blaming him for whatever made Carter leave LA, he begins to dodge them. Things are returning to normalcy, for the most part, and he feels that he can finally relax and begin to put this whole ordeal behind him.

Carter returns to work, looking as clever and put-together as always. She’s almost radiant, like she’s stolen some of Angie’s light for herself. She laughs with the girls from the front, instructs the younger agents patiently, and begins leaving every day for lunch instead of sitting at her desk with a file and a snack. She still doesn’t address Jack unless she has to, but her overall anger seems to have subsided into its usual, mellow hatred for him. It’s just another part of going to work, and Jack feels if things had gone worse in LA, she would have already exacted her revenge on him.

It’s with this thought in mind that he finally treks down to the L&L, though it may be against his better judgment. It’s early, just an hour or so after the sun began to rise, and he figures he can stop and eat breakfast if it turns out Angie isn’t there at all. The coffee is good; _that_ he hadn’t lied about.

The automat is all but deserted when he arrives, standing outside at the wide glass window and squinting in the green fluorescent light to peer inside. Carter is in there, sitting at the curved corner of the counter. He can see her profile, her hand stirring her tea, but she can’t see him unless she turned around.

Out of the kitchen comes Angie, glowing and bustling with flare and energy. He watches her eyes flicker around the restaurant’s small interior. When she sees there’s no one but her and Carter, she reaches down and presses a gentle, lingering kiss on Carter’s lips, her hand tangling with Carter’s free hand on the countertop. When they part, he watches the corner of Carter’s lips turn into a fond, peaceful smile. Angie returns it and her smile is just as bright and lively as Carter had always said. The clouds have broken away from her demeanor completely. She’s the sun again.

When she turns away from Carter, she catches Jack’s eye and stiffens, looking trapped. He dips his head to her, an acknowledgment of their understanding from weeks ago. Slowly, she nods back, her smile golden, and mouths something to him. _Thank you_.

He sets off towards the office after that, her smile infectious enough that he whistles while he walks. Carter comes in an hour later, wearing a refreshed, clear smile of her own. He doesn’t go by the automat again.

**Author's Note:**

> The quote Angie highlighted in her script comes from Oscar Wilde's "The Importance of Being Earnest".


End file.
